The Way, the Opposites and the Infinite Unity

Reading “Understanding the Tao” #2

Laozi

In a previous post, I offered to start reading the book Comprendre le Tao (Understanding the Tao) by the French scholar Isabelle Robinet published in 1996 by Bayard Editions and republished in 2002 by Albin Michel Editions.

I did not start reading this book without a specific idea in mind. I am currently running a series of collaborative seminars with a specialist in French philosophy and a specialist in phenomenology with a comparative background. In May, the seminar will cover some parts of the Taoist scriptures.

I started with Robinet’s general view of Taoism as well as her presentation of Laozi (老子). I stopped reading on page 20 before getting into her presentation of the Tao Te Ching or Dao De Jing (道德經), the Book of the Way and Virtue.

You can read or reread it here: Taoism.

In this new post, I would like to continue my reading.

The Book of the Way and Virtue

According to Robinet, experts continue to debate whether the Tao Te Ching, said to have been written in the 4th century BC, was the work of one person or several. As for its contents, she explains:

It takes the form of a collection of aphorisms, often concise, sometimes sibylline, which testify to a very mature state of the thought they reflect. It is traditionally divided into two parts, the first devoted to the Tao, the second to the Way, but this is probably not its original state, about which nothing is known for sure. (p. 20)

She points out that recent archaeological research has found a version with the opposite division: the Way first and the Tao second. This version also shows an interpretation influenced by Legalism: a school of political thought that was at the origin of autocracy, centralization, and bureaucracy in China (p. 20).

Robinet begins her explanation of the philosophy of the Tao Te Ching by commenting on the beginning of the first chapter of the book. This passage is very famous and has been rendered through several different translations. I will render her French translation literally in English, with the original Chinese terminology in parentheses.

The ways [道] that can be followed (or said) [可道] are not the Constant Way [常道],

The names [名] that can be named [可名] are not the Constant Name [常名].

Nameless [無名] is the beginning [始] of Heaven and Earth [天地];

That which has a name [名] is the mother [母] of Heaven and Earth [萬物].

Constantly without desire [常無欲], one contemplates the Wonder [妙].

Constantly in desire [常有欲], one contemplates the surroundings [徼].

Both have same Origin [同出] and different names [異名];

Together they are called the Mystery [玄].

Mystery upon mystery, Door [門] to all wonders [衆妙]. (p. 21)

On the basis of these sentences, she explains that the Tao (道), which she refers to as “the Way,” is neither utterable nor practicable: something that can be understood as an affirmation of the Tao’s non-livable and unusable qualities. She then sees two possible interpretations:

1. An invitation to search for livable and useful kinds of “ways.”

2. An invitation to search for a supreme Way beyond all taught doctrines.

But this passage does not stop at explaining what the Tao is, and continues with a discussion of “name” that will certainly interest philosophy of language enthusiasts. Robinet problematizes:

Can there be a name for that from which all names derive? Can we talk about that which is beyond language? These are the questions posed by the Tao Te Ching. But also: once there is a name, that is to say a determination, a point of reference, the same thing happens as when one draws a line; two parts appear on either side of the line, right and left or top and bottom. Not only are words inadequate, but so are the overly partial options of morals and established systems of thought. This takes the debate further than a question of the adequacy or inadequacy of language. (p. 22–23)

According to Robinet, what characterizes Taoist thought is its “logic of ambivalence,” in which a concept refers to its opposite, and in which thesis and antithesis should be seen in “their aspect of dynamic opposition and at the same time as complementarity inscribed in a Totality One,” meaning in a totality that is also a unity (p. 24).

She continues:

Primacy is given neither to existence nor to its absence, but to the infinite totality, that of the nameless Tao and of simplicity, one, indistinct and full of all possibles. Beyond that, the One balances and receives all opposites and maintains their association and circularity. (p. 24)

She adds that it is not a reality beyond the veil of appearances, but a reality inherent in existence itself, which is its ground (p. 25). Such an explanation aims to dispel a common misunderstanding of Taoism — probably influenced by the reinterpretations of Taoism by some Zen Buddhist monks.

The Way is a return to stillness and silence. The sage is hidden in this return, in this withdrawal to what he once was in the past, when, as a baby, the opposites were not yet reified and were subsumed in a cosmic unity. This retreat or withdrawal is oriented through practice in the present life, toward the world as it existed in both Taoist practices and meditations from ancient times.

This is the Way!

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Regarding the unity of opposites, readers of Japanese philosophy may be surprised by the similarities between such views and some conceptions of modern Japanese philosophers, such as the founder of the Kyōto School: Nishida Kitarō.

It is not necessary to assume a clear and strong influence of Taoism. For a philosopher, and certainly for Nishida, the influence of German idealism, especially Hegel — whose logic of being deals with the unity of opposites — is clear.

It is also the case of the influence of the Japanese cultural context, in which the elites were generally well versed in Zen readings and, for some of them like Nishida, practices. Furthermore, Nishida was a friend and reader of D. T. Suzuki, a well-known but unconventional author in Buddhist studies (especially Zen studies).

Rather, what I see in Nishida’s philosophy is a superimposition of motifs from different traditions (starting with European philosophy and including Asian philosophies), which provided him with material to create his own philosophical views. And sometimes, as in the unity of opposites, the motifs — at least in part — looked in similar directions.

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I will stop this reading here and continue in another post with a reading of Robinet’s presentation of the philosophy of the Tao Te Ching, especially the concept of wu (無).